China says interning Muslims brings them into ‘modern’ world
BEIJING — China on Tuesday characterized its mass internment of Muslims as a push to bring into the “modern, civilized” world a destitute people who are easily led astray — a depiction that analysts said bore troubling colonial overtones.
The report is the ruling Communist Party’s latest effort to defend its extrajudicial detention of Central Asian Muslim minorities against mounting criticism.
China’s resistance to Western pressure over the camps highlights its growing confidence under President Xi Jinping, who has offered Beijing’s authoritarian system as a model for other countries.
About 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other minorities have been arbitrarily detained in mass internment camps in China’s far west Xinjiang region, according to estimates by a U.N. panel. Former detainees say they were forced to disavow their Islamic beliefs in the camps, while children of detainees are being placed in dozens of orphanages across the region.
The report by the official Xinhua News Agency indicated that key to the party’s vision in Xinjiang is the assimilation of the indigenous Central Asian ethnic minorities into Han Chinese society — and in turn, a “modern” lifestyle.
Xinjiang Gov. Shohrat Zakir said the authorities were providing people with lessons on Mandarin, Chinese history and laws. Such training would steer them away from extremism and onto the path toward a “modern life” in which they would feel “confident about the future,” he said.
Trump says he’s not to blame if Republicans lose House in Nov.
WASHINGTON — Facing the prospect of an electoral defeat that could imperil his presidency, President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he won’t accept the blame if Republicans lose the House in November, arguing that he is “helping” Republican candidates in the midterms.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Trump also accused his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen of “lying” under oath, defended his use of the derisive nickname “Horseface” for porn actress Stormy Daniels and argued that the widespread condemnation of the Saudis in the disappearance of a Washington Post columnist was a rush to judgment.
Of his efforts on the campaign trail, Trump said: “I don’t believe anybody has ever had this kind of impact.” He resisted comparisons to former President Barack Obama, who took responsibility for the Democrats’ defeat in 2010 by acknowledging that his party got “shellacked.”
Democrats are hopeful about their chances to recapture the House, while Republicans are increasingly confident they can hold control of the Senate. If Democrats take the House and pursue impeachment or investigations — including seeking his long-hidden tax returns— Trump said he will “handle it very well.”
Hurricane is blamed for 16 deaths in Florida alone
PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Hurricane Michael killed at least 16 people in Florida, most of them in the coastal county that took a direct hit from the storm, state emergency authorities said Tuesday. That’s in addition to at least 10 deaths elsewhere across the South.
The scope of the storm’s fury became clearer after nearly a week of missing-persons reports and desperate searches of the Florida Panhandle neighborhoods devastated by the most powerful hurricane to hit the continental U.S. in nearly 50 years.
The count of 16 dead was twice the number previously tallied by The Associated Press.
Emergency authorities said 12 of the deaths were in Bay County, where the storm slammed ashore with 155 mph (250 kph) winds and towering storm surge last Wednesday.
Bay County includes Mexico Beach, the ground-zero town of 1,000 people that was nearly obliterated, as well as Tyndall Air Force Base, Panama City and Lynn Haven, all of which were heavily damaged.
Turkish official: Police found evidence of Khashoggi slaying
ISTANBUL — Police searching the Saudi Consulate found evidence that Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed there, a high-level Turkish official said Tuesday, and authorities appeared ready to also search the nearby residence of the consul general after the diplomat left the country.
The comment by the Turkish official to The Associated Press intensified pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who vanished Oct. 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.
The crown prince “told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly,” Trump said in a tweet.
The president later appeared to take a stronger stance in defense of Saudi Arabia, criticizing the global condemnation against the kingdom and comparing it to the allegations of sexual assault leveled against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
“Here we go again with you’re guilty until proven innocent,” Trump told AP in an interview.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia to talk to King Salman and the 33-year-old crown prince about the fate of the journalist who wrote critically about the Saudis for The Washington Post.
While it was all smiles and handshakes in Riyadh, one prominent Republican senator said he believed that the crown prince, widely known as MBS, had Khashoggi “murdered.”
“This guy has got to go,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, speaking on Fox television.
By wire sources